NASA: Human activities now affecting space

From the “worse than we thought” department and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center comes this:

Space weather events linked to human activity

Our Cold War history is now offering scientists a chance to better understand the complex space system that surrounds us. Space weather — which can include changes in Earth’s magnetic environment — are usually triggered by the sun’s activity, but recently declassified data on high-altitude nuclear explosion tests have provided a new look at the mechanisms that set off perturbations in that magnetic system. Such information can help support NASA’s efforts to protect satellites and astronauts from the natural radiation inherent in space.

From 1958 to 1962, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. ran high-altitude tests with exotic code names like Starfish, Argus and Teak. The tests have long since ended, and the goals at the time were military. Today, however, they can provide crucial information on how humans can affect space. The tests, and other human-induced space weather, are the focus of a comprehensive new study published in Space Science Reviews.

“The tests were a human-generated and extreme example of some of the space weather effects frequently caused by the sun,” said Phil Erickson, assistant director at MIT’s Haystack Observatory, Westford, Massachusetts, and co-author on the paper. “If we understand what happened in the somewhat controlled and extreme event that was caused by one of these man-made events, we can more easily understand the natural variation in the near-space environment.”

By and large, space weather – which affects the region of near-Earth space where astronauts and satellites travel – is typically driven by external factors. The sun sends out millions of high-energy particles, the solar wind, which races out across the solar system before encountering Earth and its magnetosphere, a protective magnetic field surrounding the planet. Most of the charged particles are deflected, but some make their way into near-Earth space and can impact our satellites by damaging onboard electronics and disrupting communications or navigation signals. These particles, along with electromagnetic energy that accompanies them, can also cause auroras, while changes in the magnetic field can induce currents that damage power grids.

The Cold War tests, which detonated explosives at heights from 16 to 250 miles above the surface, mimicked some of these natural effects. Upon detonation, a first blast wave expelled an expanding fireball of plasma, a hot gas of electrically charged particles. This created a geomagnetic disturbance, which distorted Earth’s magnetic field lines and induced an electric field on the surface.

Some of the tests even created artificial radiation belts, akin to the natural Van Allen radiation belts, a layer of charged particles held in place by Earth’s magnetic fields. The artificially trapped charged particles remained in significant numbers for weeks, and in one case, years. These particles, natural and artificial, can affect electronics on high-flying satellites — in fact some failed as a result of the tests.

Although the induced radiation belts were physically similar to Earth’s natural radiation belts, their trapped particles had different energies. By comparing the energies of the particles, it is possible to distinguish the fission-generated particles and those naturally occurring in the Van Allen belts.

Other tests mimicked other natural phenomena we see in space. The Teak test, which took place on Aug. 1, 1958, was notable for the artificial aurora that resulted. The test was conducted over Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean. On the same day, the Apia Observatory in Western Samoa observed a highly unusual aurora, which are typically only observed in at the poles. The energetic particles released by the test likely followed Earth’s magnetic field lines to the Polynesian island nation, inducing the aurora. Observing how the tests caused aurora, can provide insight into what the natural auroral mechanisms are too.

Later that same year, when the Argus tests were conducted, effects were seen around the world. These tests were conducted at higher altitudes than previous tests, allowing the particles to travel farther around Earth. Sudden geomagnetic storms were observed from Sweden to Arizona and scientists used the observed time of the events to determine the speed at which the particles from the explosion traveled. They observed two high-speed waves: the first travelled at 1,860 miles per second and the second, less than a fourth that speed. Unlike the artificial radiation belts, these geomagnetic effects were short-lived, lasting only seconds.

Atmospheric nuclear testing has long since stopped, and the present space environment remains dominated by natural phenomena. However, considering such historical events allows scientists and engineers to understand the effects of space weather on our infrastructure and technical systems.

Such information adds to a larger body of heliophysics research, which studies our near-Earth space environment in order to better understand the natural causes of space weather. NASA missions such as Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS), Van Allen Probes and Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) study Earth’s magnetosphere and the causes of space weather. Other NASA missions, like STEREO, constantly survey the sun to look for activity that could trigger space weather. These missions help inform scientists about the complex system we live in, and how to protect the satellites we utilize for communication and navigation on a daily basis.

###

Related:

NASA’s Van Allen Probes Spot Man-Made Barrier Shrouding Earth

Humans have long been shaping Earth’s landscape, but now scientists know that we also can shape our near-space environment with radio communications, which have been found to interact with particles in space.

A certain type of communications — very low frequency, or VLF, radio communications — have been found to interact with particles in space, affecting how and where they move. At times, these interactions can create a barrier around Earth against natural high energy particle radiation in space. These results, part of a comprehensive paper on human-induced space weather, were recently published in Space Science Reviews.

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85 thoughts on “NASA: Human activities now affecting space”

And they think coincidence that we’re in a period of unprecedented lack of solar activity? I think not, my friend. Our activity has caused solar warming, or solar climate change as they now call it. The escaping co2 is blanketing the solar system, creating a dampening effect on the sun.

Well actually it’s a lot more serious than that.
The Einsteinian waves that were recently discovered, on earth, bounced off the interferometers we built and are now on their way out to smash one of those earth like Goldilocks planets around Proxima Centauri.
Be very careful what you mess around with, there can be unintended consequences.
But it will take another 4 years for those mean SOBs out there to survey the damage we caused.
g

“Stop all space exploration activities at once!”
The only “human activity” referred to in this article as having an effect there is the creation of nuclear explosions in near earth space. Stopping that seems to be advisable, and fortunately, seems to have happened.

Nick,
You miss the irony in my brief comment.
For instance, just think how the left/greens react when there is a heavy rain fall in Californa.
They get up and protest about all fossil fuel exploitation which has caused this rain/drought/economic depression/ disaster – right?
Cheers
Roger

Nick,
Second study mentioned, talks about how the “human activity” of communication using VLF transmissions affects near Earth space. That study was part of the “comprehensive paper on human induced space weather”.

“Seems to have happened.” Um…
Too bad you apparently cannot read to the end of anything, though, Nick – there is also a claim that VLF transmissions are affecting the influx of high energy particles.
Now, the claim of a “barrier” being formed by these transmissions is probably a crock. There are exactly four VLF transmitters known to exist – one in the US, three in Russia – and they are not used on anything like a constant basis, being for communication with submarines at sea.

One of the interesting scientific discoveries was the Starfish bomb contained Cd-109 tracer, which helped work out the seasonal mixing rate of polar and tropical air masses.
Starfish Prime was a July 9, 1962 high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States, a joint effort of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and the Defense Atomic Support Agency. It was the largest nuclear test conducted in outer space and one of five conducted by the US in space.
A Thor rocket carrying a W49 thermonuclear warhead (manufactured by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory) and a Mk. 2 reentry vehicle was launched from Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean, about 1,450 kilometres (900 mi) west-southwest of Hawaii. The explosion took place at an altitude of 250 miles (400 km), above a point 19 miles (31 km) southwest of Johnston Island. It produced a yield equivalent to 1.4 megatonnes of TNT. The explosion was about 10° above the horizon as seen from Hawaii, at 11 PM Hawaii time.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime

I’d also like to see some really good evidence for this, and I wouldn’t mind some theoretical backup. I think it unlikely that we had good space data before we started using VLF, which was 60s, I believe.

A certain type of communications — very low frequency, or VLF, radio communications — have been found to interact with particles in space, affecting how and where they move.

The lower VLF frequencies are above human hearing but are audible by some animals. Tesla was playing around with such frequencies. One project was to transmit energy at the resonant frequency of the planet.
There is evidence that Tesla knew about the Tunguska Event before it happened. It was also about that time when Tesla quit being as creative as he had been before. Did his experiment go awry and scare him?
The conventional explanations are that some kind of meteorite or comet exploded in the air. These days we capture similar, but smaller, events on dash cams. link Still there is the nagging question about whether Tesla knew that Tunguska was going to happen.

Tesla is used now as “magic explanation factor” like saints and the Blessed Virgin were used in times gone by. The man was part brilliance, part showman, and part delusional. Some of his groupies lack the first two qualities.

Apparently I’m channeling Gracie Allen. When we refer to audio, the frequencies are ultrasonic, ie. very high. When we refer to radio, the same frequencies are very low. As far as I can tell, dogs can’t actually hear VLF radio signals even if they are the same frequency the dog could hear if they were audio.

VLF radio waves have the neat ability to follow the earth’s surface, including the surface of the oceans. Powerful VLF transmitters in the 25-30 KHz range are used by the US Navy and the Russian Navy (and probably other navies too) to communicate with their submarines. Apparently VLF waves are easily detectable down to depths of about 100 metres.
To reach submarines at depths over 100 metres, they use ELF, but the ELF frequencies are too low to carry much information, so apparently they just send a submarine’s call sign, which is taken as an instruction to rise to VLF depth and get messages.
These navy VLF transmitters are on all the time, whether they are carrying signals or not, and we use them quite a bit in mineral exploration. While they follow the surface in a general way, they get distorted whenever there is conductivity in the ground, and mapping the distortions can show us quite a bit about geological structure, including (if we’re lucky) mineralized zones.
So yeah, there’s pretty much a constant, continuous VLF field around the earth, it’s been there since at least the 1960s, and it might have effects on space weather. But I would assume it would be restricted to the surface layer. The ground-hugging ability of VLF is what makes it useful for communication, so I don’t imagine VLF waves getting outside the atmosphere. Of course, I’ve been wrong before, especially when theorizing on subjects I know nothing about………….

Submarine communication is not the only use for VLF. The Omega system was a VLF-based navigation system operating at about 10 kHz, and was operational from 1971 to 1999, when it was stood down in favour of GPS. There were eight Omega transmitters world wide, transmitting continuously over the entire 28-year life of the system. Of course, in those unenlightened days, whenever we had some weather, we didn’t immediately attribute it to the Omega system mucking around with the magnetosphere. Think what opportunities we lost! Protest marches following each blizzard/heatwave/whatever, saying ‘Ban Omega – make the world a safer place!’

As much as I like the story of Tesla’s Death Ray project going awry and causing the Tunguska Blast, I think it’s an extremely unlikely explanation. The conventional explanation of a low density meteorite or comet exploding near the surface of the Earth fits the facts so much better.

fireball of plasma, a hot gas of electrically charged particles
The post commits the standard dumbing-down error when discussing this. The plasma is electrically neutral. True, there are positive and negative charges in the plasma, but so are there also in your body. Half of the particles in your body are electrically charged positive, the other half are negative. The net result is no charge at all, and so is it also with the solar wind. Now, because the solar wind is hot and tenuous, the positive and negative charges are not bound to each other into atoms or molecules as in most of your body, but can move separately, just as the negative chlorine and positive sodium ions can do in ordinary sea [or salt] water. The Earth’s magnetic field is good at separating the solar wind charges: deflecting positive charges [protons] one way and negative charges [electrons] the other way and it is that separation that is part of the cause of phenomena in near Earth space that we see, like the separation of charges in car battery being able to produce a current to start the engine.

lsvalgaard
May 17, 2017 at 3:37 pm
True, there are positive and negative charges in the plasma, but so are there also in your body. Half of the particles in your body are electrically charged positive, the other half are negative. The net result is no charge at all, and so is it also with the solar wind.
—————
I have no clue…what so ever about this, but just for the sake of asking….what level of certainty can be considered or attached to such a statement as above….just asking!…what is the certainty level attached in this case to the “truth” or the true?
cheers

At the risk of revealing my ignorance…the Plasma I use is normal (neutral) molecules, which are in a vacuum, then using Radio or microwave, stripped of electrons (the negative charge) to produce reactive Positively charged Ions that do the work. Alpha radiation is just 2 neutrons and 2 protons, so always positive. Beta is primarily electrons, which are negative but apparently positrons are possible too.
According to Stanford.edu from the SOHO satellite studies
/QUOTE The composition of the solar wind is a mixture of materials found in the solar plasma, composed of ionized hydrogen (electrons and protons) with an 8% component of helium (alpha particles) and trace amounts of heavy ions and atomic nuclei: C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, and Fe ripped apart by heating of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, that is, the corona (Feldman et al., 1998).
SOHO also identified traces of some elements for the first time such as P, Ti, Cr and Ni and an assortment of solar wind isotopes identified for the first time: Fe 54 and 56; Ni 58,60,62 (Galvin, 1996).
Note that although the solar wind is electrically balanced, the solar wind consists almost exclusively of charged particles (stripped away nuclei from atoms) and is an excellent electrical conductor. These electrically conducting particles is technically known as a plasma, so it may be misleading to think of the solar wind as like Earth “winds” /QUOTE

/QUOTE The composition of the solar wind is a mixture of materials found in the solar plasma, composed of ionized hydrogen (electrons and protons) with an 8% component of helium (alpha particles) and trace amounts of heavy ions and atomic nuclei: C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Si, S, and Fe ripped apart by heating of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, that is, the corona
What is omitted is to say “with an equal number of electrons” to maintain neutrality. But as the paper was interested in the ionic composition, the electrons were not important for the paper.

‘Gas’ is quite correct [although the solar wind is extremely tenuous by earthly standards], but the solar wind [as any other plasma] is not electrically charged. From the definition of a plasma “Plasma is an electrically neutral medium of unbound positive and negative particles (i.e. the overall charge of a plasma is roughly zero).”

Yes, a plasma is energetically separated ions from what would otherwise be ionic bonds. The magnetosphere separates these massive (protons) and barely massive (electrons).
Two questions:
1. Which pole of the earth (Arctic or Antarctic) is positive, and which is negative? In other words, to which poles to the protons and electrons gather?
2. The VLF is photons. Photons are massless Bosons , and travel faster, at the speed of light. They exist in the electromagnetic field, which should have some interaction with the magnetosphere. The electromagnetic field can be bent by mass. How would you imagine VLF interacting with the plasma?

1) The Earth’s magnetic field is traditionally considered positive downwards in the North and thus negative upwards in the South, but that is not the issue. Because a magnetic field defect a charge in a direction perpendicular to the filed, the deflection is East-West, not North-South. See introduction to http://www.leif.org/research/suipr699.pdf
2) Electromagnetic waves can accelerate electric charges [that is how an antenna works] so can move charges in the plasma around, causing currents,

Which pole of the earth (Arctic or Antarctic) is positive, and which is negative? In other words, to which poles to the protons and electrons gather?

Just to be real clear, that doesn’t happen. Electrons and protons have an electrostatic field, which is not the same as a magnetic field. A stationary electron or proton would not be moved by a stationary magnetic field. Electrons and protons do not gather at the poles of a magnet.
Once a charged particle is in motion things get more complicated because a moving electric field creates a magnetic field, which is affected by other magnetic fields. An example is the cathode ray tube (picture tube) in an old television. Electrons are emitted from the back of the tube and are deflected by a magnetic field so they scan across the front of the tube to generate the picture.
If you want to know how moving charges are affected by a magnetic field, you can refer to the left hand rule. (A further complication is that the rule applies to conventional current which flows opposite to the flow of electrons. link
The bottom line is that you shouldn’t expect to find piles of electrons and protons at the poles of a magnet.

Thanks. I have some studying to do. Electrons and protons both have mass and occupy space, so seemingly there must be some accounting for their position. The solar wind is already moving, so the earth’s magnetic field steers the protons, seemingly much like the magnets in a particle collider. I guess I was looking for some sort of bombardment effect. Leif says the effect is east-west and not north-south…

gymnosperm, This should clear things up.
“Plasmas exist in a wide range of settings and varieties. Most stars are made up of plasma. The Aurora Borealis is a plasma light show in our upper atmosphere caused by the bombardment from space of the solar wind – another kind of plasma. Lightning bolts are visible plasma trails left by the passage of the electric current that formed it.”http://www.4physics.com/phy_demo/plasma1.htm
Plasma has all the potential + ions and – electrons to create a spark (lightning).

Plasmas indeed exist in a wide variety of settings and varieties. There are cold ones, and hot ones, and everything in between ones. Ultimately, they are ions separated from their natural bonds by enormous unexpected amounts of energy.
You can do your own little lightning with an arc welder. Two car batteries in series, a couple jumper cables, and a coated rod will do.
The potential in plasma is the elevation of energy above the ground state.

I don’t see anything stating that the cloud is on net positive or negative.
It just says it has electrically charged particles. Which is the same thing as what you said.
You really need to watch that jerking knee reflex, it causing you to see things that aren’t there.

Space as a vacuum, void, twilight zone, or dark recess?
Sure, why not. We can observe to the edge of the solar system, the universe, and presumably beyond without repeating the liberal assumptions/assertions about the intermediate time and space.

Quantum Entanglement – the “spooky connections” that Einstein balked at – might be a real effect, certainly many physicists believe it. But, even if it is a real thing, what are we going to do about it? Taking any action could destroy or create civilizations in some far off place in the universe.
The only solution is to give up all our worldly goods and embrace socialism!
/sarc

David Crisp describes emendations needed in the OCO-2 data for a Van Allen band distortion over South America causing cosmic ray noise in their data . David Crisp: Measuring atmospheric CO2 from space –
He doesn’t give any explanation of the cause .

When I last had a holiday at Alpha Centauri, I noticed that the sea level had risen and it was measurably warmer than my previous visits.
I suspected it was due to the magical gas from Planet Earth – CO2.

I was getting worried reading this article, then I read up on “space”…
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Please send your letters to the EPA in support of my research proposal (a bargain at only $200,000,000) to study and design new foods for astronauts which will dramatically reduce space flatulance, a known hazard that is sure to cause us all to burn to a cinder in the next few decades if not stopped.

Every NASA space shot investigating these aurora (chemical-boosted space shots) is reported in the book about shooting high-altitude rockets up from Poker Flats, Alaska. Very interesting, very sobering history of what NASA can actually do with a limited budget under extreme conditions on the edge of technology.
When the research scientists and engineers and technicians actually WANT to do RESEARCH and not fight political games or build bureaucratic empires in a budget-building scheme for greater Washington power!
Now? “Follow the book, write the budget proposal. Get the CAGW funds from sympathetic bureaucrats and politicians! Print the paper. Write the budget proposal. Get the CAGW funds from sympathetic …. “

VLF waves out to 2.8 earth radii, hello?
WUWT ???
I will defer to Smart Rocks comment..https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/05/17/nasa-humans-activities-now-affecting-space/#comment-2505425
“””…So yeah, there’s pretty much a constant, continuous VLF field around the earth, it’s been there since at least the 1960s, and it might have effects on space weather. But I would assume it would be restricted to the surface layer. The ground-hugging ability of VLF is what makes it useful for communication, so I don’t imagine VLF waves getting outside the atmosphere. Of course, I’ve been wrong before, especially when theorizing on subjects I know nothing about………….”””
As reported on spaceweather.com below. (5-18-17)
Related:
NASA’s Van Allen Probes Spot Man-Made Barrier Shrouding Earth
…Co-author Phil Erickson of MIT’s Haystack Observatory explains: “As Van Allen discovered in the 1950s and 1960s, there are two radiation belts surrounding Earth with a ‘slot’ between them. Our research is focused on the the outer radiation belt, which contains electrons with energies of a million or more electron-volts. These ‘killer electrons’ have the potential to damage spacecraft, even causing permanent failures.”
During strong geomagnetic storms, the outer radiation belt expands, causing the killer electrons to approach Earth. But NASA’s Van Allen Probes, a pair of spacecraft sent to explore the radiation belts, found that something was stopping the particles from getting too close.
“The penetration of the outer belt stopped right at the same place as the edge of VLF strong transmissions from humans on the ground,” says Erickson. “These VLF transmissions penetrate seawater, so we use them to communicate with submarines. They also propagate upward along Earth’s magnetic field lines, forming a ‘bubble’ of VLF waves that reaches out to about 2.8 Earth-radii–the same spot where the ultra-relativistic electrons seem to stop.”http://www.spaceweather.com/images2017/18may17/vlfbubble_strip.jpg
VLF radio waves clear the area of killer electrons “via a wave-particle gyro-resonance,” says Erickson. “Essentially, they are just the right frequency to scatter the particles into our atmosphere where their energy is safely absorbed.”
“Because powerful VLF transmitters have been operating since before the dawn of the Space Age, it is possible that we have never observed the radiation belts in their pristine, unperturbed state,” notes the team, which includes John Foster, a colleague of Erickson at MIT and a key leader of this research, along with Dan Baker at the University of Colorado Boulder….http://www.spaceweather.com/

ps. within a short period of time the relevant pdf document was removed from the GSFC’s website (I just checked, not there any longer, may be available elsewhere though) and my website was interrogated by an agency.

OK, so: (1) we had a period of global warming that started in the late 50s and lasted until ~2000; (2) there’s increasing evidence that the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth’s magnetosphere effects surface temperature; (3) in the late 50s we began nuclear testing that has been shown to alter the Earth’s magnetosphere Surely inquiring minds could see a grant application in this fact pattern, no?

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